1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation absorber in the microwave field. It is known to coat surfaces reflecting radar radiation with different types of radar absorber. Most radar absorbers currently have a layer structure. There are those using one or more thin resistive sheets with an appropriate surface resistance. Prior art absorbers of this type are Salisbury screens, Jaumann absorbers and single foil layers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A Salisbury screen consists of a resistive sheet which is placed at a distance of a quarter of a wavelength from a metal surface. The resistive sheet has the same surface resistance as the wave impedance in vacuum and the intermediate layer is a dielectric layer with the dielectric constant near 1. A Jaumann absorber is a combination of two or more Salisbury screens. A single foil layer consists of two dielectric layers with an intermediate resistive sheet. It is well known how the various prior art radar absorbers are to be built in respect of surface resistance of resistive sheets, relative dielectric constant of dielectric layers and thickness of the layers included for the radar absorber to function according to requirements.
The surface resistance of the resistive sheet, the relative dielectric constant of the distance material and the thickness of various layers are due to the frequency range in which the structure is optimised and the degree of reflection that is desired, that is due to the demands placed on the absorber. One example of a single foil layer optimised for the X and P band is illustrated in FIG. 1a. The surface resistance of the resistive sheet is 125Ω/□. The two layers of distance material are dielectric materials with a relative dielectric constant ∈r=4 and a thickness of 3 mm. FIG. 1b shows the measured reflection in the frequency range 0-20 GHz from the radar absorber in FIG. 1a. The absorber has a reflection less than −13 dB (5%) in the frequency range 7.4-17.7 GHz.
Resistive sheets in radar absorbers that are currently used are often made of carbon fibre cloth or a plastic film with a thin lossy sheet. These materials function at room temperature and neighbouring temperatures. However, they cannot be used at significantly higher temperatures since they would then be destroyed. It is, however, very important to be able to produce a radar absorber which can be applied to hot surfaces, such as the outlet of a jet engine or a rocket engine. This has not been possible with prior art radar absorbers.